


Erase your Man Troubles

by furiosity



Series: Short Precarious Anecdote Month [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vaguely annotated excerpts from Rita Skeeter's best-selling totally fictional book, <i>Fast Times at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement</i>. Featuring a shift in perspective, Draco in cosplay, the relativity of misanthropy, and ruminations on the topic of kissing one's enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erase your Man Troubles

**Author's Note:**

> For zahavah because I promised and sodamnquirky because of reasons. This is a songfic to Fall Out Boy's _Thnks fr th Mmrs_ and I am 9000% not sorry. (Not sure if serious or crackfic. What epilogue?)

  
_I'm gonna make you bend and break_   
_Say a prayer but let the good times roll_   
_In case God doesn't show_   


Harry Potter sat on the edge of the Fountain of Magical Brethren -- soon to be renamed the Fountain of Magical Friendship as part of Hermione's efforts to make the Ministry acknowledge magical sisterhood alongside magical brotherhood -- and wondered once again when he had become such a misanthrope.

At some point, he had begun to see the worst in everyone. Harry didn't know when it had started -- if he'd noticed, he would have put a stop to it somehow -- but he suspected that his worldview had simply become collateral damage to the job. Aurors and Hit Wizards saw people at their lowest; you had to have the benevolence of a saint not to start suspecting everyone of base motives.

The people close to him had been spared thus far, but how long would it be before Harry started to find Ron's humorous self-deprecation needy and irritating, see Hermione's passion for equality as shrill self-righteousness, and think Ginny's no-nonsense approach to life made her a bit of a callous bitch? The very thought of it scared him; it scared him even more that he could see his way to thinking those things about the people he loved. If he lost all faith in his friends, what would he have? What would he even _be_?

He'd much rather have stayed at home and listened to the Bulgaria vs Belarus World Cup qualifier on the WWN while drinking the same damned beer he was nursing now.

But it was October 31st and technically Harry Potter Day. Nobody really cared about that any more; the war had ended ten years ago, and most people thought it was hilarious that Voldemort's name had once been taboo. Nevertheless, Harry's attendance was required at the Ministry Halloween party held in the Atrium each year, costume optional.

Harry surveyed the crowd and saw only ugliness: there a witch deliberately standing on the train of another witch's Muggle dress, here a warlock pocketing silverware. A group of handsome younger wizards were having a conversation with a pudgy, stringy-haired fellow their age, and they seemed perfectly amiable, but Harry saw the way they rolled their eyes when he wasn't looking.

He used to be the sort of person who noticed the lovely little things people did for each other -- love and care had been so scarce during his childhood that they'd loomed large and impossibly significant for him whenever he'd encountered them in the wild, but somewhere along the way he had lost the ability to focus on kindness.

_Is this what it feels like to be Malfoy?_ Harry thought sullenly, watching Draco Malfoy regale a group of coworkers with what was undoubtedly another one of his wildly inappropriate jokes brimming with sexual innuendo.

Malfoy was dressed in his perennially popular Princess Clothilda ensemble: pale green robes with intricate silver trim at the collar and sleeves and a jewel-studded tiara worn askew because Clothilda was notoriously clumsy. A star-tipped wand tucked into a tight white-blond bun gathered at the nape of Malfoy's neck completed the look. Harry had always thought that Malfoy kept his hair long especially so he wouldn't need a wig for the Ministry's Halloween parties or any other time he had an excuse to dress up as Clothilda.

Malfoy's audience included an owl, two house-elves, a pink Dementor, and an extremely realistic ghoul. After this party ended, most of these drunken louts would hit the Muggle streets for their much-anticipated annual exercise of blending in with zero effort.

Of course, the difference between Malfoy and Harry was that Harry couldn't pretend to enjoy himself in a room full of people for most of whom he felt contempt.

  
_And I want these words to make things right_   
_But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life_   


"Unbelievable," Hermione announced, sliding onto the bench beside Harry in the Ministry mess hall. "They're delaying the ceremony _again_!"

"What ceremony?" Harry asked, twirling his fork in his bowl of spaghetti. He was beginning to suspect that the kitchen put extra food colouring inside the tomato sauce to make it look like blood. Halloween Week at the Ministry was a right barrel of laughs every year.

"Renaming the Fountain, of course," Hermione said. "It's astounding, the extent to which some people will go to try and prevent change merely because _they_ don't see how important it is."

"Want me to talk to Fetterly?" Harry asked, shoving his food aside with irritation. Halloween was over; why did everything have to be spooky and weird until the bloody weekend?

"Harry, I know you mean well, but I'm the one who needs to see this through. If I asked you to clear the way for me every time I ran into trouble--"

"Okay, okay," Harry said, holding his hands up with a grin. "I get it, so get started on your lunch or break will be over."

Hermione spooned runny white sauce reminiscent of brain matter onto her skull-shaped fish cutlet and smiled. "Did I tell you what Rosie did the other day?"

Harry let her talk. With Ron overseas, between her workload and Rosie, she didn't get much of a chance for adult conversation these days. He reckoned she just needed somebody who would listen. After Rosie's latest escapades, she moved on to her boss and then the hostage crisis in Russia's north. Harry had been keeping half an ear out for news of that; Robards could want him to assist in the negotiations as one of the kidnappers was a former Death Eater small fry, Dobbins or Bobbins or something like that.

"D'you ever feel like you really can't stand most people?" Harry asked her as they carried their dishes back to the counter.

"Every day," Hermione said. "I think it's the best kept secret of being a grown-up."

  
_"Who does he think he is?"_   
_If that's the worst you got_   
_Better put your fingers back to the keys_   


"I'm putting the paperwork through this afternoon," Robards said, stopping at Harry's desk.

Harry set his tea mug down and half-turned in his chair. "Paperwork?"

Robards had a tendency to think people were aware of his thought process at all times; it made him difficult to talk to.

"We have to submit character reports based on your personnel record. Russia doesn't like visitors; they think everyone who comes over will try to stay there illegally."

So he would have to go to Russia after all. "Why, is it a nice place to live?"

"I have no idea, I've never been," Robards said. "You don't look happy."

"I'm not," Harry said. "Why do we need to negotiate with some arsebucket Death Eater? Just let the Russians take care of him."

"Not to negotiate, to observe and apprehend -- they're going to raid next week. They don't want to prosecute one of ours and they certainly aren't going to jail him for us."

"Fine. Usual protocol, one Auror plus one Hit Wizard, or does Russia have special rules for that too?"

Robards shook his head. "Protocol's the same. Malfoy will be going with you."

Harry sighed. "Does it _have_ to be Malfoy?"

"I know you aren't fond of him, but he's got the lightest case load right now so he's all Alfred can spare." Alfred Dalton was the Hit Wizards' chief.

"You could try keeping your voice down when you say stuff like that, Potter," Malfoy told him, peering in. "We're right next door, you know."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Do I look like I care?"

"You fellows work it out; I've got to get your paperwork started," Robards said, slinking out.

Malfoy stared at him. "Sexual frustration isn't a good look on you, Potter."

Harry threw his sock monkey paperweight at the doorway. "Fuck off, Malfoy; I don't have time for your shit."

  
_Been looking forward to the future_   
_But my eyesight is going bad_   


"Going somewhere?" Ginny asked from the doorway to Harry's bedroom.

He flipped his trunk lid shut and turned to her. "Russia."

"That hostage thing?"

"Yeah. Robards is making me go with _Malfoy_ of all people."

"Ugh." Ginny made a face. "Are they still trying to make you two get along?"

"I don't doubt it. Is that the new uniform?"

Ginny nodded, twirling to show off the dark green Quidditch robes. Her number and surname on the back were a pale green reminiscent of Princess Clothilda.

"Flashy," Harry said with approval. "You'll look great at the qualifiers." Team England had appointed Ginny as Chaser just last week.

"Thanks," she said, beaming. "When's dinner?"

"Twenty minutes," Harry said. "I'm just about done packing."

She nodded and left; Harry listened to the floorboards creaking until she reached her bedroom at the other end of the landing. Ten years ago he never would have thought that they would be living together at Grimmauld Place as nothing but roommates, but life and love were strange little things.

"Hermione said something interesting to me the other day," Harry said to Ginny as they sat down to dinner. "According to her, misanthropy is the best kept secret of being a grown-up."

"A grown-up who works for the Ministry, maybe," Ginny said, picking up her fork. "It's not so bad out here in the real world."

  
_And this crystal ball_   
_It's always cloudy except for_   
_When you look into the past_   
_One night stand_   


The night before he was due to leave for Russia, Harry couldn't get to sleep.

He had many excellent reasons to loathe Malfoy and reminded himself of all of them on a regular basis, but sometimes he had to face his biggest problem. Malfoy had prime blackmail material on him, but despite all expectations had never used it. Much of Harry's hostility towards Malfoy was really attempted provocation: how far could he push before Malfoy snapped?

It had happened five years ago.

Harry and Ginny had been broken up for a year already. It had been mutual; the heartbreak already in the past -- they had both fallen out of love and tried desperately to fall back in it. In the end they had agreed that trying to pretend they were in love for the sake of some vague hopes they had for their future together was pointless.

They hadn't made a big deal out of it and continued to live together, only sleeping apart. They still went out for drinks and ate meals together, dated other people and gossipped about them when they got home, spent Christmases at The Burrow and birthdays in each other's company.

_One morning after the Ministry's Halloween do, Harry wakes in a too-soft bed next to an enormous window with a view he doesn't know: a vast expanse of yellowing grass touched by an early frost. The air smells faintly of water lilies. For all of him, Harry can't remember where he is and how he got here. He remembers Hermione talking him into a game of charades at the party; he remembers being quite thoroughly soused at the time. After that, nothing but flickers of bright white light, distant laughter, and the taste of white chocolate. His head hurts._

_There is someone in bed with him, but their back is turned and they're fully under the heavy white blanket: all Harry can see is the top of their head. Blond hair. Harry notices something shining at the far corner of the room: Princess Clothilda's star-tipped silver wand. He scrambles out of the bed in horrified recognition._

Harry had crept away from Malfoy Manor that morning and took a leave of absence for the next three days. When he had returned to work -- dreading the inevitable rumours and Malfoy's jeering ridicule -- nothing had changed. People had asked him if he was feeling better. Malfoy deliberately annoyed him in the exact same ways as before.

It was as though he had dreamt the whole thing.

  
_They say I only think in the form of crunching numbers_   
_In hotel rooms collecting page six lovers_   


After taking a Portkey to Novosibirsk, Harry and Malfoy were escorted to their hotel by an unsmiling local Auror who spoke effortless English with an American accent and strongly advised them not to leave the premises. The local Muggles had different customs, after all, and English wizards would not blend well.

Harry happened to know that Novosibirsk had a perfectly serviceable wizarding inn, but their chaperone claimed it was full. A bellhop rolled their trunks into their room and left without waiting for a tip. Harry surveyed the room and found it bog-standard: two neat beds with cabinets on opposing sides, wardrobe built into the wall next to a tiny bathroom. Thick drapes, grey carpet, sturdy desk and rolling chair. Bulky television set atop a chest of drawers opposite the beds, no mini-refrigerator.

And he was stuck inside these walls with Malfoy until they were called to bring their man in after the raid. That could be in two hours or in two days; no one had bothered to tell them either way.

Malfoy, in typical Malfoy fashion, had been deliberately friendly just to piss Harry off ever since they had left the Ministry building in London.

There had been one time, years ago, that Harry had wondered if Malfoy was really trying to be nice, but when he'd worked up the courage to ask, Malfoy had laughed in his face and told him he was too soft-hearted.

"Where would you like to have dinner?" Malfoy asked for the third time. "There's nothing but Muggles around here and none of them speak any English, but we could try? Russian food isn't very interesting, though."

"Room service or the hotel restaurant," Harry said. "We're not on vacation. Plus you heard what that bloke said."

"He didn't say we weren't allowed to leave the room, just that he advises we don't. I personally think he's full of it. How different could Russian Muggles be from our regular ones?"

"This is not up for discussion," Harry snapped. "I'm in charge, and I'm telling you we're staying in the hotel."

Malfoy affected a pout. "You are the opposite of fun, Potter."

He continued to chatter meaninglessly at Harry for the rest of the bloody day: over dinner at the restaurant downstairs, as Harry tried to watch a game show on the telly but couldn't understand a word, and then as they settled in for a night's sleep.

"Did I tell you about that one time I made the mistake of sleeping with Zacharias Smith and he wouldn't leave me alone afterwards?"

"Malfoy, for the love of God, this isn't a sleepover," Harry muttered. "I don't want to hear about your man troubles."

"If you don't want to hear something, you should use your wand like the big boy you are and plug your ears with magic," Malfoy said, all sugar. "People aren't required to shut up just because you want them to."

  
_Get me out of my mind and get you out of those clothes_   
_I'm a liner away from getting you into the mood, whoa_   


They couldn't even drink to pass the time: if the raid happened, they would need to move in immediately. He wished there were someone he could contact at least for a timeline -- he was starting to worry that the locals had forgotten about them.

"How come you've never told anyone about that night?" Harry asked, peering out into the street. They were on the seventeenth floor, so he couldn't make much out in the darkness below, but it was a nice change from the room's industrial beiges and greys.

"That night?" Malfoy came over to stand next to him, also looking out.

"Five years ago. Halloween party."

Malfoy''s shoulders relaxed. "Oh, that. Are you _still_ worried I'll tarnish your precious reputation?"

"More like I'm worried you'll do it at the worst possible time," Harry said, glancing away.

His own honesty startled him. He was so used to not guarding his tongue around Malfoy that for a moment it felt like he was talking to Ginny. She was the only person in front of whom he didn't feel the need to pretend. The only _other_ person, besides Malfoy, apparently. Wasn't that just the height of irony?

"You could always tell everyone yourself if you're so worried. It's not like there's anything especially scandalous about two blokes having a good time together these days." Malfoy's tone wasn't quite conversational; Harry couldn't tell what had changed.

"I don't know if it was a good time or not," Harry said. "Seeing as I don't remember a thing."

"Would you like your memory refreshed?" Malfoy's breath was hot on Harry's ear, and the sudden drop in the pitch of his voice did something to Harry's lower half. Something that felt rather nice.

"Yeah, I guess maybe I would," Harry said slowly. Why lie? He _wanted_ to know about the moments that had been missing from his life. He turned to Malfoy at the same instant Malfoy's arm circled his waist, and for a breathless moment he was caught by the unguarded desire in Malfoy's grey eyes.

Malfoy reached up to remove Harry's glasses and set them on the windowsill, swift, sure, no breaking eye contact, as though he'd done it many times before. The rest of the room swam away from Harry's vision; all he could see was Malfoy's face. He had never liked that face, with its pointed features, cold eyes, thin mouth, and sharp tongue, but despite that he wanted to keep looking at it. He thought he could see the same ambivalence reflected in Malfoy's expression. The two of them stood by the window in an awkward half-embrace, hesitating. _How do you kiss an enemy?_

Harry leaned in and pressed his mouth against Malfoy's, eyes open, tasted Malfoy's upper lip with the very tip of his tongue. His hands came up to Malfoy's elbows on instinct, as if to keep him from running away. Malfoy's grip around Harry's waist tightened. Harry had the peculiar feeling that they stood at the edge of an ocean: one wrong move and they would be swept away. He didn't want this the way he was used to: kisses were expressions of affection or ardent desire. He felt neither for Malfoy, yet he didn't want to stop.

He slipped his arms around Malfoy as his tongue slid past Malfoy's lips to taste him properly; Malfoy stiffened for a moment and exhaled too sharply. As his tongue moved to meet Harry's halfway, the ocean's waters closed above their heads. A rush of hot blood spiked through Harry's belly as Malfoy's soft, wet lips closed around his tongue; Harry pushed Malfoy away from the window, still kissing him, back and back to Harry's bed, where he broke the kiss long enough to straddle Malfoy, lifting his arms above his head and pinning them there as he kissed him deeper and deeper until Malfoy's breathing was ragged and every exhalation was a whimper.

"Clothes," Malfoy gasped when Harry came up for air. "Off."

They didn't bother trying to undress each other; it was quicker to just strip, and Harry wanted that part over with quickly; he'd never been as impatient to get his hands on bare skin as he was now.

Once naked, Malfoy pressed against Harry's side, hooking a leg around Harry's leg, his erection hot against Harry's hip, filling him with confusion and lust. "This was about as far as we went that night," he confided.

Harry exhaled, not certain whether he was relieved or upset. "That was it?"

"I was drunk, you were drunker and half conscious," Malfoy said.

"Wonders will never cease," Harry murmured, turning to look at him. "Does that mean we're going to stop here?"

Malfoy smirked. "Is that what you want?"

"Fuck no."

  
_One night and one more time_   
_Thanks for the memories_   
_even though they weren't so great_   


Harry stared at the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. The bulb inside struggled against death, now flaring brighter, now dimming to almost nothing. _Like people_ , he thought. _That's what we do. Out here in the real world._

He peered at Malfoy, who lay on his stomach beside Harry, flipping through a glossy Muggle shopping catalogue he'd fished out from the bedside cabinet.

"Just for the record, I still don't like you," Harry said.

"Behold the sound of my broken heart," Malfoy said and let out a hearty, deliberate belch.

Harry snickered despite himself. "I bet you say that to all the boys."

_He tastes like you only sweeter_

[end] 


End file.
